History of Florence Airport

The first flight field in Florence was created in the Campo di Marte area in 1910 when military authorities allowed the great field to be used for "Experiments in Air Navigation". Campo di Marte thus became Florence's first airport, and remained so throughout the Twenties. Soon surrounded by houses, the flight field became inadequate for the new aircraft that were then replacing the first canvas-covered craft. It was decided to find a more suitable area for the airport and in 1928 the locality "Cipresso del Nistro" on the plain between Florence and Sesto Fiorentino was chosen. The Peretola airport was inaugurated here in the early Thirties.

Peretola was a great field where airplanes landed and took off without any mandatory direction until the Ministry of Aeronautics decided to enlarge and upgrade the now historical flight field. The airport area was extended toward Castello and in 1938-39 an asphalt runway 60 meters wide and 1000 meters long, oriented in the north-east direction, was built.

In the late 1940s Peretola welcomed its first passenger flights with the DC-3 of Aerea Teseo. In 1948, however, this company went out of business. In the late Fifties and early Sixties Alitalia, also using the DC3, offered the flights Rome-Florence-Venice and Rome-Florence-Milan. ATI then offered several domestic flights with the Fokker F27. In the early Eighties it was decided to upgrade the airport facilities to let Peretola "take off" again.

In 1984 Saf, now AdF (the company which manages the airport) was founded and in the same year the restructuring work was completed: lengthening (from 1000 to 1400 meters) and lighting of the runway, installation of the VOR-DME, and rebuilding of the airport terminal. In September 1986 regular flights started again. Since then the number of airplanes and passengers has steadily increased.

In 1990, after a debate that involved Florence's politicians and intellectuals, the airport was named after Amerigo Vespucci the great Florentine navigator.

In 1992 the building now dedicated to arrivals, constructed by AdF, was inaugurated. Two years later Civilavia inaugurated the new departures building. Still in 1994 the City of Florence opened the new car park on entry to the airport. The great step forward in quality was obvious, but definitive upgrading of the airport took place in 1996 when Florence celebrated the lengthening of the take-off and landing runway by 250 meters and AdF provided for further enlargement of the departure area. Today the new area covers a total of 1,200 square meters, 770 of which are for public use, and has 15 check-in desks.

Since April 9, 1998, AdF has a global concession for managing the airport infrastructures, and it has assumed responsibility for everything concerning the maintenance and development of Florence Airport.

In late 1999 projects for restructuring and enlargement began, involving the departures and arrivals terminals, the aircraft parking areas and other areas dedicated to the operational and commercial management of the airport. In July 200 AdF made it debut on the stock market, while regards quality, in 2001 Amerigo Vespucci was among the first European airports to have obtained UNI EN ISO 9001/2000 certification for all of its services.